We set up the MSF Access Campaign in 1999 to push for access to, and the development of, life-saving and life-prolonging medicines, diagnostic tests and vaccines for people in our programmes and beyond.

Based in Brussels, MSF Analysis intends to stimulate reflection and debate on humanitarian topics organised around the themes of migration, refugees, aid access, health policy and the environment in which aid operates.

Our medical guidelines are based on scientific data collected from MSF’s experiences, the World Health Organization (WHO), other renowned international medical institutions, and medical and scientific journals.

Evaluation Units have been established in Vienna, Stockholm, and Paris, assessing the potential and limitations of medical humanitarian action, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of our medical humanitarian work.

Providing epidemiological expertise to underpin our operations, conducting research and training to support our goal of providing medical aid in areas where people are affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or excluded from health care.

A collaborative, patients’ needs-driven, non-profit drug research and development organisation that is developing new treatments for neglected diseases, founded in 2003 by seven organisations from around the world.

"Top Ten" List of the Most Under-Reported Humanitarian Stories

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Press Release16 December 1998

New York, N.Y. - Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) today issued its list of the Top Ten Under-Reported Humanitarian Stories of 1998. The organization compiled the list to call attention to human crises that were largely ignored by the U.S. press in the past year.

"There has been a precipitous drop in the quantity and quality of international news coverage in recent years," said Joelle Tanguy, executive director of the U.S. office of MSF. "Save for some outstanding journalistic efforts, the items on the Top Ten list have gone sadly under-covered. Without adequate information, we lack the ability to form responsible personal and societal responses to events that affect many and may one day affect us."

The devastating famine in southern Sudan, the growth of multidrug-resistant diseases, and a cholera epidemic that swept East Africa were among the 10 major stories that failed to receive widespread media attention. A full list follows.

MSF is the world's largest independent international medical relief agency, working in more than 80 countries. In 1998, over 2,000 MSF volunteers brought aid to the world's "hot spots," such as Kosovo and the areas affected by Hurricane Mitch. But most of their work occurred in places that fall outside the glare of the media's spotlight.

"My friends and neighbors have no idea of the magnitude of the tragedy in Sudan," said Lisabeth List, R.N., a MSF volunteer from Dallas, Texas, who spent four months running a feeding center for severely malnourished children in Sudan's Bahr el Ghazal province.

The MSF U.S. office compiled the opinionated list from events witnessed firsthand by its volunteers. The list includes crises that occurred during 1998, such as the mutilation of civilians in Sierra Leone and a mass exodus of people fleeing fighting in the capital of Guinea Bissau. It also includes catastrophes that have evolved over many years, such as the environmental destruction of the Aral Sea basin in countries of the former Soviet Union, the explosion in the number of the world's children who spend their days on the street, and the vast spread of the AIDS epidemic.

Global

Top Ten Under-Reported Humanitarian Stories of 1998

Statement16 Dec 1998

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